World War II veteran Rupert "Twink" Starr, who will serve as grand marshal of the Columbus Pride Festival

Patriotic activist -

As the parade passed, he stood near some bushes -- a hiding spot in case someone he knew saw him
celebrating with thousands of gay people.

Rupert Starr had stood up to Nazis during World War II, spending four months as a prisoner of
war in Poland, but his participation in a Columbus Pride Festival in the 1990s required more
confidence than he could muster.

This year, he is the center of attention: the grand marshal of the 1 p.m. parade and keynote
speaker at a Sunday brunch for what's considered the largest gay-pride celebration in the
Midwest.

Not until recently has Starr (known to friends as "Twink") reached such a public comfort level
with his decades-old homosexuality.

He's 86.

Organizers of the festival -- the theme is "Freedom" -- wanted to honor Starr for his activism
against the U.S. military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy.

Until recently, the Upper Arlington resident never discussed his war experience, either.

His story:

Trying to fit in

In 1951, Starr read a newly published, progressive book called
The Homosexual in America: A Subjective Approach.

The 28-year-old loved his college girlfriend but couldn't bring himself toward physical intimacy
or marriage after years of dating. A psychologist helped him acknowledge the reason, persuading him
to stop dismissing his feelings for men.

At the time, gay life was so underground that Starr thought he needed the book to understand who
he was -- and that there were others like him.

He told no one of his self-discovery.

Since graduating from Ohio University in 1946, Starr had gained prominence in Columbus through a
successful real-estate career. And he would later provide leadership to the Columbus Board of
Realtors and Columbus Jaycees.

"I wanted people to think of me as the president of my company and my church," he said. "I
didn't want to be different. . . . I didn't want to be a second-class citizen."

Meanwhile, Starr began living with interior designer Allan Wingfield, whom he met in 1954 at a
bar near Ohio State University.

Some of their gay friends and colleagues in denial had married women; the couple continued a
relationship until Wingfield's death in 2007.

Still, many considered the two "roommates," not partners. In the early '90s, even Starr's two
brothers were surprised to learn of their younger sibling's sexual orientation.

During the past decade, Starr has gradually opened up to others. Still, some friends who
implicitly knew were never told so, said Loann Crane, a friend for more than 50 years.

"I never knew whether he'd come out with it or not," Crane, 84, said this week. "There are just
some things you don't discuss."

Feeling like a failure

Starr still wakes up at 3 a.m. some days thinking about what he couldn't tell his colonel in the
spring of 1945.

The Army second lieutenant had recently been released from an officers' prison camp in Poland,
where he had tried to keep warm during subzero temperatures with his daily ration of turnip
soup.

During the Battle of the Bulge the previous December, Starr had been captured in Belgium after a
multiday mission with another soldier. At one point, as he tried to deliver a message across enemy
lines, he escaped bullets. The next time, though, he faced surrender or death.

He was then caught in the midst of air raids -- surrounded by fires and destruction -- during a
weeklong march to the prison camp. An eight-day journey on the floor of a crowded boxcar
followed.

By the end of the war, almost 700 men in his 106th Infantry Division had been killed and 1,200
wounded.

The colonel wanted the story of Starr's survival, but it was too painful to recount.

"We just got captured," was all he could say.

He believes that he failed the colonel.

Starr had joined the ROTC in 1940, hoping to be a part of a war that seemed an adventure. He
thought he'd see the world described in the history lessons his mother taught him at Mount Sterling
High School.

Upon his return to the United States, though, he was among the veterans who barely mentioned the
war. To him, military service felt unremarkable; his POW experience, disappointing.

"I thought my duty was to fight," he said, "not be captured."

Gaining perspective

Five decades later, Starr found renewed purpose in his story.

Wanting to meet new people, he joined the gay-and-lesbian Log Cabin Republicans club in
2001.

Soon enough, though, he found himself at political events discussing the military's "don't ask,
don't tell" policy, which allows service members to be discharged based on homosexuality.

So opposed to the policy was Starr that, upon meeting documentary producer Patrick Sammon at a
dinner in 2004, he obliged a request to become a sort of national spokesman for Log Cabin by
appearing in an article and a video about his experiences.

Since then,
Courage Under Fire has been featured at the organization's national convention
and in meetings with elected officials. It remains posted on the national Web sites for Log Cabin
and its nonprofit arm, the Liberty Education Forum.

"His story was unique," said Sammon, who was president of Log Cabin until earlier this year. "It
certainly illustrates the sacrifices that gay and lesbian service members have made not only today
but in the history of our country."

In the video, Starr argues against the policy ("It's important to shoot straight, not be
straight," he likes to say) and cries, as he always does when discussing the war.

Sammon recognized his reluctance to share the story but sensed a greater purpose at hand.

Starr's friend Crane agrees.

"Like the rest of us, he's beginning to feel quite mortal," she said. "I'm sure he's not just
(speaking out) for himself, but for a lot of other people."

Finding courage

An American flag and a gay-pride flag will accompany Starr today on the parade route from the
Ohio Statehouse to Goodale Park.

The Columbus Pride Festival, like dozens of others this month in cities throughout the country,
commemorates the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riots in New York -- protests considered to have
started the gay-rights movement.

For Starr, this year also marks the 65th anniversary of his captivity.

Since the war, he has traveled to 148 countries, all seven continents, all 50 U.S. states and
all of Canada except the Northwest Territories.

As of this week, he can check off one more destination from the list: Poznan, Poland.

Starr returned yesterday from a trip with two relatives in which he revisited the area
surrounding his former prison camp.

Though still disturbed by the horrors of war, he believes he gained strength by living through
them.

"To be able to say, 'I made it; I'm a man' -- that gave me courage," he said. "That courage
evolved into me living my life the way I was born and facing my sexuality.

"I felt if I could do it in battle, I could do it in my private life."